With the creation in 2012 of its national air flag, Côte d'Ivoire harbored the ambition of becoming an air transport hub in West Africa. But this momentum has been weakened by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, which is forcing a readjustment of forecasts.

The National Civil Aviation Authority of Côte d'Ivoire (Anac) has delivered statistics on the level of activity in 2020. Data reported a significant decline in air traffic over the period. In its 2020 annual report published on Friday, October 15, the public body indicates that passenger traffic at the Felix Houphouet Boigny Airport (FHB) has dropped by 58.8% YoY in 2020 from 2,271,700 passengers to 935,130.

This poor performance is linked to the Covid-19 pandemic that hit the world and had fallouts in all sectors. The impact was harder in Q2 2020. Passenger traffic at FHB airport, which was close to 200,000 passengers per month during peak periods, fell to only 2,156 passengers in April 2020.

For the domestic airports (Bouaké, Korhogo, Man, Odienné, San Pedro) served by Air Côte d'Ivoire, the cumulative number of passengers received stood at 58,829 in 2020 compared to 96,783 the year before.

The annual gap in cargo volumes over the period for Abidjan airport also shows a decline but in a smaller proportion. Volumes declined by 4.8% compared to 2019 for freight levels estimated at 26,661 tons in 2020 against 28,016 tons in 2019. Data from domestic airports on cargo carried in 2020 by Air Côte d'Ivoire amounted to 64,062 kg while those of 2019 showed 71,397 kg. As for aircraft movements, 18,511 aircraft passed through the capital airport in 2020, while in 2019 it was a total of 33,375 aircraft. This represents a decrease of 44.5% for the period. All domestic airports recorded 2,442 aircraft movements in 2020, while these figures were 3,521 in 2019.

The proportions of passenger traffic by region reveal that 36.8% of travelers using the country's airport hubs come from the ECOWAS region; 24.4% of these flows are from or to France. Most commercial freight comes from these two regions with 39.2% for ECOWAS and 33.4% for France.

Henoc Dossa (intern)